UT Tyler Office of Marketing and Communications

Media Contact: Hannah Buchanan Public Affairs Specialist Marketing and Communications The University of Texas at Tyler 903.565.5769 or 903.539.7196 (cell)

September 27, 2012

Dr. John Placyk, assistant professor of biology at The University of Texas at Tyler,
was awarded nearly $25,000 from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to help in the
Texas Gartersnake conservation efforts, Dr. Michael Odell, associate vice president
for sponsored research and director of federal relations, announced.

With the award, Placyk will collaborate with the department to provide natural history,
distribution, taxonomy and population biology data for the species, which has been
recently listed as imperiled.

“The Texas gartersnake (Thamnophis sirtalis annectens) was described in the 1950s as one of the 11 currently recognized subspecies of the
common gartersnake (T. sirtalis) based solely on morphological data,” Placyk said. “Since its initial description,
its behavior, ecology and systematics have not been examined, and it remains one of
the more enigmatic of the subspecies. It was given a conservation rank of S2 [imperiled]
in the state of Texas, and those that are familiar with it have suggested that its
numbers are dwindling. If conservation managers are to make any attempt at conserving
this species in the future, baseline data on its distribution, taxonomy and population
biology is needed.”

He will incorporate UT Tyler student research within his laboratory for the two-year
project. The current focus of his laboratory is on conserving species using genetic
data.

Serving UT Tyler since 2007, Placyk holds a master of science in biology from Northern
Michigan University and a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University
of Tennessee.

Among honors, he received the UT Tyler Alpha Chi Scholastic Honor Society’s “Outstanding
Faculty Award” in 2010. Placyk also recently served as the keynote speaker at this
year’s Tennessee Herpetological Society’s annual meeting.

One of the 15 campuses of the UT System, UT Tyler offers excellence in teaching, research,
artistic performance and community service. More than 80 undergraduate and graduate
degree programs are available at UT Tyler, which has an enrollment of almost 7,000
high-ability students at its campuses in Tyler, Longview and Palestine.